Examination of Witnesses (Questions 233-239)
ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER
JOHN YATES,
MS CARMEN
DOWD AND
MR DAVID
PERRY QC
23 OCTOBER 2007
Q233 Chairman: Let me call the Committee
to order and welcome our witnesses this afternoon. We are very
glad to see Assistant Commissioner John Yates from the Metropolitan
Police—
Assistant Commissioner Yates:
Good afternoon.
Q234 Chairman: —Carmen Dowd,
Head of the Special Crime Division, Crown Prosecution Service,
and David Perry QC, who advised the CPS. By way of incident background,
when we first met you in the spring of last year it was agreed
then, you kindly said, in the event of there being no charges
or prosecutions at the end of the inquiry that you had then embarked
upon, that you would come back nevertheless and talk to us about
any lessons that you had learnt from the inquiry, and we are very
glad to be doing that today. The CPS, in the statement that it
made announcing that there would be no charges, said with no understatement
that "the investigation has involved an inquiry into the
probity of senior political figures working at the very heart
of government." It has obviously been a hugely important
investigation. We want to learn the lessons from it. We have said
here that you asked us to put aside our own inquiry that we had
embarked upon last March so that you could do your work, and I
think we have done that fastidiously throughout and are now returning
to it, but we do now want to try and learn the lessons of what
has happened and to draw upon the experience that you have accumulated
to be able to do that. I wonder if any or all of you would like
to say something by way of introduction?
Ms Dowd: I think we would, Chairman,
and I would be very grateful for that opportunity.
Assistant Commissioner Yates:
Firstly, I am very grateful for the fact you did choose to suspend
your inquiry yourselves so we could undertake the criminal investigation
without the problems that we anticipated there would be should
you have kept going. Would it be helpful if I read a very short
opening statement to you? I can properly explain for the record
what I think I can share with you and perhaps what I think I cannot.
Q235 Chairman: Yes, please do.
Assistant Commissioner Yates:
I have always indicated that I would be happy to assist the Committee
with its inquiry. I do share your view, the Committee's view,
not to pursue the police investigation by other means and would
hope that I can assist you in relation to the lessons learned
and some of the future policy and perhaps regulatory issues. It
is my view that it is neither appropriate nor fair for me to reveal
any personal and sensitive information gleaned during the course
of the police investigation, and it would be wholly improper of
me to level personal accusations in this very public forum against
individuals who have no right of reply and who are not in a position
to defend themselves. On this issue I have received communications
from lawyers representing all parties, both witnesses and people
who came under suspicion, involved in this investigation, highlighting
that this information that they provided was only provided for
the purposes of a criminal investigation and expressing their
concern that such information, that may now be referred to in
this public forum, would be problematic. It is, I am sure you
will appreciate as members of the Committee, important for the
public to have confidence in its police and the protection of
source material is one of those factors that can guide us in maintaining
such confidence. I do recognise though the enormous public interest
generated by this case and, thus, the proper need to account for
our actions. You will be aware that the Metropolitan Police Authority,
our statutory oversight body, has already requested a report under
their own powers. This report is being prepared for their full
Authority Meeting in November. That will outline the reasons for
commencing the investigation, its length, its proportionality,
et cetera. All this being said, I do wish to be as helpful
and as open as I possibly can with the Committee today, and whilst
I cannot divulge the actual details of the evidence against individuals,
I can, I believe, talk about the case in a generic sense and do
this in a way that will not breach the duty of confidentiality
owed to those who we dealt with in this case. I hope that is helpful.
Q236 Chairman: Thank you for that.
Ms Dowd: Good afternoon to the
Committee. I would like to thank the Committee for affording me
the opportunity to address you from the outset. I think it is
important to set out from the beginning the constraints which
we, the CPS, and Mr Perry QC, independent counsel, will have to
operate under this afternoon. We will, of course, attempt to assist
the Committee wherever possible. However, as discussed with the
Committee Secretary in the summer, there are inevitably limits
to what we can say. As you will no doubt fully appreciate, the
statutory role of the CPS is to advise the police in certain circumstances
and to decide whether or not a prosecution should follow an investigation
and conduct criminal prosecutions wherever appropriate. The police
provide evidence and information to enable us, the prosecutors,
to carry out those statutory functions. We have to operate by
the principle that the material we receive should be treated by
us as having been supplied only for the purposes of carrying out
our statutory functions and should not be used for any collateral
purpose. For this reason, as well as the need to protect the legitimate
interests of individuals not subject to criminal proceedings,
we are unable to disclose to the Committee the nature of the evidence
or information supplied by the police, nor details of the decision-making
process over and above that which was provided during the announcement
of the decision in July 2007. This principle is a matter of public
policy to secure and maintain the proper administration of justice
and maintain confidence in the independence, impartiality and
fairness of the CPS. Those suspects who are prosecuted are entitled
to have their guilt or innocence established with all the safeguards
that a criminal trial offers, including, of course, strict rules
of evidence. Those who are not prosecuted are entitled to the
presumption of innocence. All individuals connected to this case
are entitled to that presumption of innocence. We must take into
account the interests of persons who may have been mentioned in
statements, documents and interviews provided in the course of
the investigation. The dissemination of that evidence and information
in this case could undermine the presumption of innocence to which,
as I have said, all the individuals related to this case are entitled,
and that is by enabling material to be trawled through without
the safeguards of a criminal trial and assumptions made about
the aspects of that material. In addition to that, material has
been provided by individuals to the police solely for the purpose
of the police investigation. They have a reasonable expectation
too of us that we will not put the material that the police have
provided to any collateral use. Again, this is a matter of general
public policy and to depart from this would have a detrimental
impact on the effectiveness and operational efficiency of both
the police and the CPS in that individuals would be discouraged
from providing information to the police for fear that it might
be used for other unrelated purposes. So, it is within these constraints
that we, the CPS, and Mr Perry, who sits beside me, offer our
assistance to the Committee.
Q237 Chairman: Thank you very much.
Do you want to add a word, Mr Perry?
Mr Perry: I have nothing to add.
Q238 Chairman: That is very helpful,
because it establishes that we are all playing by the same rules
but it does not prevent us having some generic questions and some
generic answers. It was on 27 March last year that this Committee
agreed to what it called "a short pause" in its inquiry
so that the police could undertake what it believed would be a
fairly short inquiry into these matters. Indeed, when we met you
in private session in July last year—the record of this
can now be published—Assistant Commissioner John Yates said,
"my professional judgment is we can have this wrapped up
by October. I would imagine some time in the middle of September",
and we know, in fact, it went on for a year. Can you help us to
understand how you could speak so confidently last July about
it being wrapped up by September and yet it was not until the
following April that you were able to make your final report to
the CPS?
Assistant Commissioner Yates:
Yes, Chairman, I think I can, and I am not surprised you have
asked me that question. The law on this subject is necessarily
complex and quite difficult—that is point one—and
I was aware of that right from the start, but in commencing this
investigation we did it, apart from a couple of notable exceptions
that you will be aware of, in a spirit of co-operation—we
sought co-operation from all sides—and, I have to say, that
from the outset many people, from all parties, co-operated in
full and I make absolutely no criticism of them at all. There
were, however, instances when we received less than full co-operation.
I do not say that now in the sense that it was deliberate in its
intent, but I think there was a sense that they thought that we
would ask questions, get some answers and simply go away. That
is not how police investigations work. We seek views from witnesses,
we seek an account, we then go away and we seek to corroborate
that account. If that corroboration is not forthcoming, we will
go back again, and we will go back again, and we will go back
again, on some occasions up to five times. At the heart of this
case was trying to understand how the list in 2005 came to be
put before the House of Lords Appointment Commission (if I can
call it HoLAC for the purposes of today). That proved pretty difficult,
and it was only until January of this year that we actually found
out how that list was put together. I do not want to go into the
evidence, because I said I would not do that, but that was a principal
problem. It is then a matter of public record that at that point
we began to investigate other offences around perverting the course
of justice. It is a matter of public record. As I say, I do not
think people deliberately misled us, but I do think, on reflection
and with hindsight, that we were treated as a political problem
rather then a criminal problem. Here we are: the police. We will
just do our job and we will follow the evidence. You have heard
me say that a number of times, but that is our job and that is
what we will do, and if we do not get a proper account or what
we believe is a proper account, we will go back and try again,
and that is what we did in this case, and that is why it took
so long.
Q239 Chairman: When we had the meeting
in July you told us it was all going swimmingly and it would all
be over by September. You were paying tribute—it is all
on the record—to the co-operation that you were receiving.
Assistant Commissioner Yates:
To certain aspects, Chairman. That was July of last year.
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